Gloria Allred. Not what you think.
I'd had pretty much a negative opinion of Gloria Allred until a friend suggested maybe I didn't know enough about her and referred me to this article:
http://www.elle.com/print-this/gloria-allred-the-avenger?page=all
My opinion of her has improved quite a bit. An excerpt:
THE AVENGER
You know her as the lawyer who represented Tiger Woods’ mistresses and the blond allegedly groped by presidential hopeful Herman Cain. But Gloria Allred has also done pioneering work for women’s rights. Is it possible to be a righteous feminist advocate and a celebrity gun for hire?
BY JENNIFER SZALAI
Allred was admitted to the California bar in 1975, which happened to be the year that Time, in its Person of the Year issue, dedicated to American Women. She started a law practice with two classmates from Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, Michael Maroko and Nathan Goldberg, and they began to establish themselves as specialists in civil rights, including the burgeoning fields of gender discrimination and sexual harassment.
In 1980, she successfully sued the L.A. County Sheriff's Department, which had been shackling pregnant inmates while they were in labor. In 1984, Allred filed a case against L.A.'s Catholic Archdiocese on behalf of a woman who was abused by seven priests and had given birth to one of their offspring; 23 years later, she won. Another client had been asked during a job interview about her menstrual cycle; Allred won a settlement after eight years of wrangling.
Her critics point to these early victories and draw a sharp contrast with her later work, wondering why the same attorney would deign to take on plights that seem more like fodder for gossip mags than grave affronts to justice. But Allred doesn't see the discrepancy in such stark terms—if she sees it at all. In her 2007 book, Fight Back and Win, she has a chapter called "Little Things Start Big Changes" in which she describes bringing suit against everyone from a dry cleaner (for charging more to clean women's blouses) to a kids' salon (for charging more for girls' haircuts).
The sheer range of cases is striking. And to each one—whether the client was a victim of rape or a reality-TV experience gone awry—Allred appends an "Empowerment Lesson." (Sample: "Standing up for integrity has its price, but it's one worth paying."
Allred seems to have taken "the personal is political" rallying cry of the '70s and run with it, finding both victimization and empowerment wherever she looks.
Indeed, Allred still uses the radical vocabulary of an earlier era. "I'm not an academic. I'm not a philosopher," she told me the first time we met. "I'm in the war zone, I'm on the battlefield. Often, there's going to be blood in the water." She concedes that women are "learning their rights, and they're fighting back," but she doesn't believe things have improved much for women in the four decades since she started practicing law.
If anything, she said, young women are prone to greater disappointment, "because they expect to be treated fairly, to be treated on their merits, not sexually harassed, not beaten, not deprived of their child support. 'It's 2012? I didn't think it was going to happen to me.' They're in shock." When pressed about whether she truly believes the situation is as dire as it's ever been, Allred is unrelenting. "It hasn't gotten better in 36 years," she told me, her brown eyes trained steadily on mine. "There are still wounded on the battlefield, and most of them are called women."
= new reply since forum marked as read
"She is ego and news driven..." You assigned to her a negative motive for her life's work. WTF. 
but you've set a new standard.
P.S.
Allred represented Nicole Brown Simpson's family. Fell better now?
Lisa Bloom (born September 20, 1961) is an American civil rights attorney, best known as anchor of Lisa Bloom: Open Court – a two-hour live legal news program – on truTv's IN SESSION, formerly Court TV, from 2001 to 2009.
